Wednesday, 5 August 2015

Dating Outside Your Type

In one very memerable episode of sex and the city Carrie goes to a shrink who tells her that she has a problem, she chooses the wrong men. In response Carrie insists that it's the wrong men that pick her. The episode ends on an ironic note, when the beautiful man she met in therapy turns out to have a problem too, he looses all interest in the women he dates after he's slept with them. Carrie then realises that she does in fact, pick the wrong men. I love this episode, I love it because I can relate to it so, so much.

Everyone has a type. Tall, small, naughty, nice, brown hair, blonde hair, well you get the picture. My type, as my best friend puts it are 'tall, beautiful arseholes.' And she couldn't have put it better. I slept with a guy recently under quite strange circumstances and the first thing one of my friends said when I told him was 'wait, you slept with a guy under six foot two?!' I like the tall ones. The height pool for men I date is usually between 6'3 and 6'7. I don't just like tall men I like fucking giants. They're also almost always ripped. In effect I basically just want a Greek god, must have been all that time I spent watching Hercules as a kid. I wouldn't consider myself shallow really, it's just that these are the types of guy I'm instantly attracted to, and these are the types of guy that have generally been attracted to me. Another thing they all seem to have in common is that they mostly all turned out to be arseholes, the bigger and taller they were the more so. Whether in the past I've picked these guys or they've picked me one thing seemed clear, I needed a serious type change.

So recently I took it upon myself to do just that. I went on a date with a guy that I would nevernormally go for. I met George* in a night club. He wasn't short, but he was shorter than I usually went for, I'd say around six foot at a push. He wore glasses and was super nerdy. He wasn't at all confident or cocky, when we met at the club he had a few drinks but was still completely shy. We talked on and off throughout the night and eventually he asked for my number so he could take me out. We didn't share a kiss when the evening ended but he assured me he's be in contact.

I met George again on a Thursday night. We went out for drinks at a small yet ridiculously overpriced cocktail bar in my local area. George was from up North, but he told me the travel would be worth it to see me even just for five minutes. He was sweet. On the date I could tell instantly that he was nervous by the absolutely enormous hand (full body) gestures that accompanied each of his sentences. "Girls like you throw me" he exclaimed. "You're beautiful, you're funny, and you're bloody gorgeous." His extreme gestures calmed down after a few beers and a rum daiquiri, but the compliments continued "You're way out of my league" he proclaimed at several points throughout the night. I felt as though I had received enough compliments in those few hours to make up for the vast lack there of I had received on all other datesI'd been on this year. During the third and final round of drinks I offered to pay. I gave him the cash and went to the toilet as he bought them, however upon looking in my purse when I'd arrived home I found that he had bought the drinks all along and placed the notes back in there. At the end of the night we kissed, and he said he wanted to see me again.

George was nice, really really nice. I'm sure if this were a chick flick he would be perfect, maybe somewhere along the (story) line I'd fall for another arsehole who would treat me bad, but George would be destined to win my heart in the end. The only problem was this isn't a movie and he wasn't perfect, at least not to me. There was no, as Carrie would put it, Za Za Zoo. In the taxi home I wasn't thinking too much about the night. This would be the point in any other first date situation that I would be replaying the bad bits, wishing I could do them over and swooning at all the good bits, mesmerised by how he made my heart flutter whilst blushing in the back seat.

I will happily admit that the men I tend to go for are - at least of a physical level, 'out of my league'. Dating George was a lot easier than dating Ryan Gosling look-a-likes. I felt it was a lot easier to be myself, as though I had less to prove. I know that looks aren't everything and shouldn't determine who we are, but in my millennial generation at least it affects a lot. I wish I could say otherwise and I know I'm wrong for thinking it, but when somebody is physically very attractive it makes me feel less so. It makes me feel like I have to be a bloody fantastic, perfect specimen of a human being in order to somehow deserve to be with them. It can restrict me at first from being myself, I have to hold back on the bad puns and other weird personality traits. It is however, extremely exciting.

I didn't see George again and I think I know why. I love the chase. I love the impulse of fear. Fear that they're too good to me, that I could lose them at any second. The feeling that I had to prove myself, although maybe not the most healthy, was at least a feeling - and a strong one at that. The excitement of being with someone who had power over me. With George there was no chase, he was like wet putty in my hands, the Pinot Grigio of men and it was boring. So maybe I'm a thrill seeker or maybe I'm just a masochist. Perhaps my type is toxic, but I wouldn't change it. Either way I can at least now say that I've tried.